Community Coordinator at Code for Africa (CfA)

The successful candidate will work with an agile transnational Knowledge team of data analysts, community coordinators, digital designers, and editorial experts, with additional support from CfA’s software engineering and forensic research teams, in 22 countries across the continent.

About this role

The successful candidate will help CfA build a community of Wikipedians-in-Residence (WiR) in Anglophone and Francophone African countries, specialising in editing, fact-checking and verification of information in Wikipedia as well as help build sustainable relationships with CfA’s partners, Wikipedia communities in Africa, and local Wikipedia volunteer groups. 

You will help develop and grow a community of volunteer Wikipedia editors and contributors, by organising events, facilitating technical training, marshalling resources and forging partnerships with research, media, statistical organisations and Wikipedia communities. You will also help pioneer new ways for the wider Wikipedia community in Africa to mobilise and tackle topical issues such as climate denialism or delayism and related mis/disinformation.

The ideal candidates will have strong strategic analysis and critical thinking skills, as our projects are varied and fast-paced, so you need to quickly understand and learn new things. You will need to possess keen attention to detail. You should be comfortable handling multiple tasks with multiple ongoing deadlines and should have previous experience working on the digital collaboration tools that CfA uses, such as Slack, Google Drive, and Trello.

Required 

• Substantial, practical experience working as a WiR or as part of a Wikipedia project. 
• Registered Wikipedian with a good reputation on Wikipedia.
• Advanced hands-on experience in Wikipedia editing and understanding of rules that govern Wikipedia editing. 
• Ability to write online learning material and implement online workshops on Wikipedia’s toolkits and culture.
• Experience in organising Wikipedia edit-a-thons or other related Wiki events.
• Comfortable with training, skills coaching and mentoring.    
• Experience in digital research, online community organising and outreach. 
• Ability to work across a diverse network of editors and researchers.
• Organised and able to create, manage and oversee multiple timelines and schedules.
• Ability to work creatively and accurately under pressure with excellent attention to detail.
• Ability to multitask, prioritise, and manage time efficiently.
• Excellent partnership engagement and stakeholder management skills.
• Excellent leadership, team-building, and self-management skills.
• Experience working with online-first tools such as Google Product Suite 
• Proficient in English language (spoken and written).

Preferred: 

• Familiarity with climate denialism and climate justice programmes.
• Familiarity with data analysis and data visualisation tools such as spreadsheets, R, Flourish will be an added advantage.
• Relationships with Wikipedia communities in Africa and media houses.
• Bilingual in English and French (spoken and written)
• Bachelor’s degree in any relevant field

Language and Location Requirements:

• Location: Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa or Uganda. Exceptional candidates from elsewhere in Africa will be considered.
• Languages: English 
• Preferred but not required: Arabic, French, KiSwahili or any other major language spoken in Africa.

Responsibilities: 

• Build and manage a community of Wikipedia editors and contributors across four or more countries in Africa.
• Organise WiR community events including monthly meetups and edit-a-thons which will focus on researching specific topics to fast-track the creation of new entries on Wikipedia, or make corrections/updates to existing entries.
• Forge partnerships with research, media, statistical organisations and Wikipedia communities.
• Facilitate technical training on how to edit Wikipedia articles, create content on topical issues on Wikipedia and determine the quality and credibility of Wikipedia articles.
• Work with local user groups to replicate Wikipedia’s successful approaches, Wikipedia’s new machine learning tools and playbooks. This will include training Wikipedia editors to teach user groups to use and contribute to Wikipedia by demystifying the editorial processes and providing guidance on establishing quality standards of the resource. 
• Develop publicity content covering CfA’s work on Wikipedia.
• Conceptualise and develop Wikipedia online courses for CfA’s MOOC
• Track and compile data collected about participants and the impact of the Wikipedia training sessions and events.
• Conceptualise and develop Wikipedia and other Communities’ training materials.
• Create weekly and monthly WiR community engagement plans and project reports.